Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man tells the story of the rescue in May 1940 of British soldiers fleeing capture and defeat by the Nazis at Dunkirk. Dunkirk was not just about what happened at sea and on the beaches. The evacuation would never have succeeded had it not been for the tenacity of the British soldiers who stayed behind to ensure they got away. Men like Sergeant Major Gus Jennings, who died smothering a German stick bomb in the church at Esquelbecq in an effort to save his comrades.

Combat Crew: The Story of 25 Combat Missions over Europe from the Daily Journal of a B-17 Gunner

John Comer kept a journal of the 25 missions he flew in 1943, when the casualty rate on his base was close to 80 percent. His book is handwritten history, recorded within hours after the battles occurred. Comer vividly creates his experiences as top-turret gunner/flight engineer in a B-17 squadron that was thrown against the best pilots the Luftwaffe could offer.

Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany

This is the dramatic story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, this is a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden. Fighting at twenty-five thousand feet in thin, freezing air no warriors had encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear.

The Wrong Stuff: The Adventures and Misadventures of an 8th Air Force Aviator

Between April and July 1944, Truman Smith flew 35 bombing missions over France and Germany. He was only 20 years old. Although barely adults, Smith and his peers worried about cramming a lifetime's worth of experience into every free night, each knowing he probably would not survive the next bombing mission. Written with blunt honesty, wry humor, and insight, The Wrong Stuff is Smith's gripping memoir of that time.

Wings on My Sleeve: The World's Greatest Test Pilot Tells His Story

The autobiography of one of the greatest pilots in history. In 1939 Eric Brown was on a University of Edinburgh exchange course in Germany, and the first he knew of the war was when the Gestapo came to arrest him. They released him, not realising he was a pilot in the RAF volunteer reserve - and the rest is history. Eric Brown joined the Fleet Air Arm and went on to be the greatest test pilot in history, flying more different aircraft types than anyone else.

Bomber Command

With an introduction read by Max Hastings. Bomber Command's offensive against the cities of Germany was one of the epic campaigns of the Second World War. More than 56,000 British and Commonwealth aircrew and 600,000 Germans died in the course of the RAF's attempt to win the war by bombing. The struggle began in 1939 with a few score primitive Whitleys, Hampdens and Wellingtons, and ended six years later with 1,600 Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Mosquitoes razing whole cities in a single night.

The Battle of the Atlantic: How the Allies Won the War

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Battle of the Atlantic, written and read by Jonathan Dimbleby. The Battle of the Atlantic was - though often overlooked - crucial to victory in the Second World War. If the German U-boats had prevailed, the maritime artery across the Atlantic would have been severed. Mass hunger would have consumed Britain, and the Allied armies would have been prevented from joining in the invasion of Europe.

After the Flood: What the Dambusters Did Next

Former RAF Tornado Navigator and Gulf War veteran John Nichol sets out on a personal journey to discover what happened to 617 Squadron after the flood. The role RAF 617 Squadron in the destruction of the dams at the heart of the industrial Ruhr has been celebrated in book, magazine and film for more than seventy years. On 17 May 1943, 133 airmen set out in 19 Lancasters to destroy the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams. Fifty-six of them did not return.

FLAK

A collection of vivid, unforgettable stories from RAAF veterans about their experiences of combat in World War II. It is also an account of the strange, sometimes obsessive journey of the author himself, as he explores a passion held since childhood. From bomber pilots to fighter aces, from rear gunners to bomb aimers, from stories of death and fear to tales of humor and comradeship, Michael has helped unearth the extraordinary stories of ordinary men living and fighting in extraordinary times.

Fur Volk and Fuhrer: The Memoir of a Veteran of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler

Like many Germans, Berlin schoolboy Erwin Bartmann fell under the spell of the Zeitgeist cultivated by the Nazis. Convinced he was growing up in the best country in the world, he dreamt of joining the Leibstandarte, Hitler's elite Waffen SS unit. Tall, blond, blue-eyed, and just 17-years-old, Erwin fulfilled his dream on Mayday 1941, when he gave up his apprenticeship at the Glaser bakery in Memeler Strasse and walked into the Lichterfelde barracks in Berlin as a raw, volunteer recruit.

Destiny in the Desert

This is a unique single-volume history of the road to El Alamein - 'the end of the beginning' - and the bloody battle that followed...It was the British victory at the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942 that inspired one of Churchill's most famous aphorisms: 'it is not the end nor is it the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning'. And yet the true significance of this iconic episode remains unrecognised.

Thunder Below!: The USS Barb Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare in World War II

Under the leadership of her fearless skipper, Captain Gene Fluckey, the Barb sank the greatest tonnage of any American sub in World War II. At the same time, the Barb did far more than merely sink ships-she changed forever the way submarines stalk and kill their prey.

This is a gripping adventure chock-full of "you-are-there" moments. Fluckey has drawn on logs, reports, letters, interviews, and a recently discovered illegal diary kept by one of his torpedomen.

The Kamikaze Hunters

In May 1945, with victory in Europe established, the war was all but over. But on the other side of the world, the Allies were still engaged in a bitter struggle to control the Pacific. And it was then that the Japanese unleashed a terrible new form of warfare: the suicide pilots, or kamikaze. A story of courage, The Kamikaze Hunters is a gripping account of how a few brave men helped to ensure peace.

Tiger Tracks: The Classic Panzer Memoir

Wolfgang Faust was the driver of a Tiger I tank with the Wehrmacht Heavy Panzer Battalions, seeing extensive combat action on the Eastern Front in 1943-45. This memoir is his brutal and deeply personal account of the Russian Front's appalling carnage. Depicting a running tank engagement lasting 72 hours, Faust describes how his Tiger unit fought pitched battles in the snows of Western Russia against the full might of the Red Army.

Carrier Pilot

In 1942, Norman Hanson learned to fly the Royal Navy's newest fighter: the US-built Chance Vought Corsair. Fast, rugged, and demanding to fly, it was an intimidating machine. But in the hands of its young Fleet Air Arm pilots, it also proved to be a lethal weapon. Posted to the South Pacific aboard HMS Illustrious, Hanson and his squadron took the fight to the Japanese. Facing a desperate and determined enemy, Kamikaze attacks, and the ever-present dangers of flying off a pitching carrier deck, death was never far away.

We Were Warriors: One Soldier's Story of Brutal Combat

A captain in 29 Commando, Johnny Mercer served in the army for 12 years. On his third tour of Afghanistan, he was a joint fires controller, with the pressurized job of bringing down artillery and air strikes in close proximity to his own troops. Based in an area of Northern Helmand that was riddled with Taliban leaders, he walked into danger with every patrol, determined to protect them. Then, one morning, in brutal close-quarter combat, everything changed....

To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Changed the Modern World

To Rule the Waves tells the extraordinary story of how the British Royal Navy allowed one nation to rise to a level of power unprecedented in history. From the navy's beginnings under Henry VIII to the age of computer warfare and special ops, historian Arthur Herman tells the spellbinding tale of great battles at sea, heroic sailors, violent conflict, and personal tragedy - of the way one mighty institution forged a nation, an empire, and a new world.

Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck

A stunning look at World War II from the other side.... From the turret of a German tank, Colonel Hans von Luck commanded Rommel's 7th and then 21st Panzer Division. El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, Poland, Belgium, Normandy on D-Day, the disastrous Russian front - von Luck fought there with some of the best soldiers in the world. German soldiers. Awarded the German Cross in Gold and the Knight's Cross, von Luck writes as an officer and a gentleman.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, a country house called The Firs in Buckinghamshire was requisitioned by the War Office. Sentries were posted at the entrance gates, and barbed wire was strung around the perimeter fence. To local villagers it looked like a prison camp. But the truth was far more sinister. This rambling Edwardian mansion had become home to an eccentric band of scientists, inventors and bluestockings. Their task was to build devastating new weaponry that could be used against the Nazis.

Hunting Hitler's Nukes: The Secret Race to Stop the Nazi Bomb

In the Spring of 1940, as Britain reeled from defeats on all fronts and America seemed frozen in isolation, one fear united the British and American leaders like no other: the Nazis had stolen a march on the Allies towards building the atomic bomb. So began the hunt for Hitler's nuclear weapons - nothing else came close in terms of priorities. It was to be the most secret war of those wars fought amongst the shadows. The highest stakes. The greatest odds.

The Last Panther: Slaughter of the Reich - The Halbe Kessel 1945

While the Battle of Berlin in 1945 is widely known, the horrific story of the Halbe Kessel remains largely untold. In April 1945, victorious Soviet forces encircled 80,000 men of the German 9th Army in the Halbe area, South of Berlin, together with many thousands of German women and children. The German troops, desperate to avoid Soviet capture, battled furiously to break out toward the West, where they could surrender to the comparative safety of the Americans.

Russell Tomlinson says:"An excellent account of life on the frontline"

D DAY Through German Eyes: The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

Almost all accounts of D-Day are told from the Allied perspective, with the emphasis on how German resistance was overcome on June 6, 1944. But what was it like to be a German soldier in the bunkers and gun emplacements of the Normandy coast, facing the onslaught of the mightiest seaborne invasion in history? What motivated the German defenders, what were their thought processes - and how did they fight from one strong point to another, among the dunes and fields, on that first cataclysmic day?

Sniper One: The Blistering True Story of a British Battle Group Under Siege

April 2004: Dan Mills and his platoon of snipers flew into Southern Iraq, part of an infantry battalion sent to win hearts and minds. They were soon fighting for their lives. Back home we were told they were peacekeeping. But there was no peace to keep. Because within days of arriving in theatre, Mills and his men were caught up in the longest, most sustained firefight British troops had faced for over 50 years.

Fly

Simultaneous release of the thrilling new volume of true stories from airmen of the Second World War, from the author of Flak (also available in audio by Bolinda). Michael Veitch's life-long obsession with the aircraft of the Second World War led him to conclude that every single person who flew, or flew in them, has at least one extraordinary story to tell. With most of these veterans in their 80's, he knew that it was a matter of urgency to find them now, before their personal stories disappear forever.

Publisher's Summary

During World War II, Canada trained tens of thousands of airmen under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Those selected for Bomber Command operations went on to rain devastation upon the Third Reich in the great air battles over Europe, but their losses were high.

German fighters and anti-aircraft guns took a terrifying toll. The chances of surviving a tour of duty as a bomber crew were almost nil.

Murray Peden's story of his training in Canada and England, and his crew's operations on Stirlings and Flying Fortresses with 214 Squadron, has been hailed as a classic of war literature. It is a fine blend of the excitement, humour, and tragedy of that eventful era.

Would you consider the audio edition of A Thousand Shall Fall to be better than the print version?

No but only because the narrator was hopelessly amateur. He mispronounced much and indulged in malapropisms. His attempts at accents detracted from the text, which is beautifully written, graphic, funny and tragic in equal measure. The author brings out the danger, the fortitude of the crews and the spirit which permeated Bomber Command. A worthy tribute in particular to those brave airmen who went to war in the Short Stirling, a much maligned aircraft but an aircraft with a good reputation amongst those who mastered it on operations.

What was one of the most memorable moments of A Thousand Shall Fall?

Too many to mention but the description of the author's trip to Gelsenkirchen, for which he won a well deserve DFC, stands out. Posterity is fortunate that Murray Peden has chosen to record his stellar career as a bomber captain and pilot in such lively, sensitive and graphic words.

What didn’t you like about Anthony Haden Salerno’s performance?

His utter ignorance of the subject, his cringing attempts at accents, his comical mispronunciations and malapropisms. Some examples with the correct version in brackets: Startishall (Stradishall), Bury Street Edmonds (Bury Saint Edmonds), Extractor (Exactor), St Neets (St Neots), Reeding (Reading), Coop (Co-op), Coop (Coupe), N.A. A.F.I (naafi - and all the other abbreviations, particularly ranks, which should have been pronounced in full not spelt), Jacowbeen (Jacobean), practisable (practicable) and worst of all, mispronouncing Air Commodore Johnny Fauquier's surname such that it resembled the four letter F-word. This was to show a disprespect for the text. Why does Audible use actors, who inevitably have little sympathy for military subjects, when a knowledgeable expert would be true to the text and impart a sympathetic understanding.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes.

Any additional comments?

I still rate it one of the finest aircrew memoirs and I've read or listened to most. A pity Salerno didn't do it justice but this can be overlooked in deference to Murray Peden.

I have owned the book for years but never managed to get into it so finding the audio book let me try again. Apart from some very odd reading of place names, Bury 'Street' Edmunds and Reading (pronounced reading as in book) and reading the symbol ' as feet and not seconds on navigation matters the reader's accent worked very well. Overall I very much enjoyed this book and would recommend it to any with an interest in World War II.

A fascinating account of a bomber pilot from training through service in England. It was slightly spoiled by the mispronunciations of several English place names a couple of which left me quite confused at times.

The perspective of just one person. So many WWII books are grandiose coverage of leaders and tactics. This is just the story of one person. The details are so great, the story seems to be day to day and gives the reader a strong feeling of the author's life. Not only a great pilot, Murray is a good writer. This is the book to learn what it took to become a pilot during this short period of history. The humor is refreshing and well done. One of my favorite WWII books. Be sure to read "The Wrong Stuff" and "Above the Thunder" if you like this book.

What does Anthony Haden Salerno bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

This book is a collection of stories, most of them very funny. Telling the story is critical, and the narrator does a great job. What fun recording this book must have been for him.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Not the title. "No Better Time to Learn to Fly. No Better Time to Die Flying."

Any additional comments?

Every pilot should read this book so they know what they missed. Just the story of landing the Tiger Moth is worth the hours invested. I'm not a pilot, but my father was an 8th Air Force pilot 1943 to 1945. Now I know a little more about him.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Craig Walker

Camarillo, California, USA

14/01/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Interesting. Canadian account of Bombers in WW2"

A long but interesting account of a Canadian entering the Bomber force and missions in WW2, and of a rather unique bomber, the Short Sterling in action. A great book to keep with your aviation library.Wll worth a listen and the money.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

John

Hilton, United Kingdom

14/06/17

Overall

Performance

Story

"Brilliant account of WW2 flying"

This is a simply brilliant account of an ordinary pilot's experience in World War II. It combines both the drama and danger faced by these young men with lots of anecdotes about what it was like to be a servicemen at the time.

I am private pilot myself and am based very close to where the author was stationed. I have flown over the disused airfields in the story without realising their significance.

The writing style is engaging and very enjoyable.

My only criticism (written as a Brit!) is that the narrator did not bother to research pronunciation of British place names. Initially this is amusing, but later it really starts to grate!

Despite that, I'd thoroughly recommend it!

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

D. LeBlanc

Ontario Canada

22/06/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Story and narration great"

Both the quality of the writing and the narration are excellent. Peden is a good writer telling an amazing story and the voice work matches with spot on accents from various countries.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Jim

Edmonton

09/03/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Canadian Bomber Pilot"

Anyone interested in Canada ' contributions to the air war over Europe during WW2 will find this book worth while.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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